Thursday, July 9, 2009

"No, today I'm a chicken."

I start my day between 6 and 6:30 a.m. with cement trucks, tractors, pounders (okay, I have no idea what the real name of the "pounder" is) and beeping waking me not so gently from my slumber. At 7 a.m., I stumble onto my patio with my coffee to breathe in the fresh scent of tar. At 8:30 a.m. I am at the theatre as 52 kids stumble into the dark theatre. At 8:40, an 8th grade student takes the stage and performs small plays for the students.
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"Do your Darth Vader play, Christie!" shouts a crowd of high school guys.
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"No, today I'm a chicken."
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And she was - for twenty minutes - a chicken performing in The Magic Fishbone(I knew Charles Dickens should have had a chicken in his story!). She performed as suggestions were shouted out from the sleep-eyed students and the more scarily alert ones.
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Is it a wonder I am craving "simple?"
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In May I wrote in my blog of my desire to live in a villa as Frances Mayes does and go to my terrace to pick baby lettuces. And now that it is July, I may. I transform my brain - as only a former actress can - and see my villa and my terrace.

My arugula - ready for picking.

Baby green lettuces - to be transformed into salads. But simple. After a morning with my squirrelly chickens, I have been coming home to adapt Pride and Prejudice. Twenty-seven characters (yes, I cut quite a few) and twenty two scenes - I want simple.

Arugula with shaved Parmesan. Salt and pepper and bit of oil and vinegar and done. Summer on my lips, simple, breathing in the spicy scent of the leaves - taking me to Italy.

Hi Claudia...Are you sure you didn't sneak off to a Villa in Italy without telling us...Good food does help us eacape from the stress around us...the noise would be annoying, but you'll have sidewalks in the end, right?Good luck in scaling down the play...I love chickens...Take care...Wanda

oh yes - that is the summer salad to come home to. The inclusion of the figs is making my little lips pucker in sweet anticipationthank you for stopping by the blogI see we have the girlichef in commonlong live good food, great cars and a healthy dose of happiness

You crack me up :D I definitely long for simpler days, as well...ah, to be living in Tuscany...reviving an old Villa...cooking for neighbors, picking olives! Ah, love your beautiful lettuces and those figs, ah :)

Don't you just LOVE proscuitto and fresh figs? I just wrap the proscuitto around them and serve for hors d'oeuvres and it's always a hit...even though it took five seconds to put together and couldn't be simpler. BTW, your garden looks gorgeous.